Despite massive reserves of cash victims of abuse have received a pittance

Despite massive reserves of cash victims of abuse have received a pittance

THE enormous wealth of the Catholic Church in Australia has been revealed in the royal commission with the Brisbane archdiocese alone having $30 million in cash reserves, on top of all the church properties.

Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge said they were not even one of the "fat cat" diocese.

It also made a profit from its archdiocese development fund which last year was $22 million.

Despite the vast wealth, the royal commission into institutionalised responses to child sex abuse was told that since 1970, it had paid out only $2.5 million to victims of abuse by its priests and other religious brothers.

Of that, $1.7 million was covered by insurance so it had cost the church just $760,000.

Schoolteacher Joan Isaacs, who was sexually and mentally abused as part of a cult by one Brisbane priest, Father Frank Derriman, received just...